


And Then I'll Settle in My Bones

by Lyssandra_Med



Series: One-Shot [35]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, Blood Magic, Corruption, Dark Hermione Granger, F/F, One Shot, Praise Be to Doc, Prompt Fic, Ritual Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:01:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21632614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssandra_Med/pseuds/Lyssandra_Med
Summary: Was this what she had wanted?She wasn’t sure.But she loved it all the same.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter, Hermione Granger & Lucius Malfoy, Hermione Granger & Narcissa Black Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Series: One-Shot [35]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1429282
Comments: 7
Kudos: 60





	And Then I'll Settle in My Bones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [drD](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drD/gifts).



> Prompt Fic - Based on "Hermione is secluded due to some unspoken betrayal that Hermione set in motion. Hermione regrets her actions, the War rages on. A new program has been passed by the Ministry, pairing Muggleborn with Sponsors."  
> That's the roundabout (mostly because I feel this space doesn't need the full description).
> 
> I hope I've done it justice as is.
> 
> (no edit, no beta)

It wasn’t the harsh warmth of a hand that pressed down into the rigid muscles beneath her navel.

It wasn’t the repetitive chants - _all ominous and yet relaxed_ -, sibilant and still darkly inviting.

It wasn’t the acrid scent of iron and char that tickled her nose when it filled her lungs on every breath, filtered and pouring down in thick sheens that reflected the meagre light from the brazier hanging above her head.

It was the eyes.

Twinned chips of pale silver and granite, black spaces that hid something deep, all open and inviting.

The look that said she could just throw herself into them.

The look that said she could fade away and be at peace beneath their gaze forevermore.

The palm pressed down further as something quickened into desire within her gut, a heady shiver and flushing of skin that tingled while she lay there. Her head was swimming beneath the veil of black curls, her mind a weight set free. She could feel the pulsing, feel the thrum, the pull of something so very ancient and yet still so new, something immeasurably old and yet still so powerful. Something that was infinitely _bigger_ than herself trying to pound and force its way inside of her body, inside her mind, a wriggling knowledge that looked to fall underneath every thought. 

Every fear.

Every last vestige of what was once _her._

If she were calmer she supposed she would have seen all this coming from the very first moment that she had been invited-

_No._

No, invited was far too light a word.

Coerced?

Tricked?

Cajoled and led astray, she playing the part of a lost lamb, and _He_ the two-time saviour. He had wanted them to make amends. He had wanted to bridge and then close off the gap that had severed them ever since _it_ happened, her failure and her fall.

She had wanted to believe Him oh so very much. Gods above, she had wished and wanted for nothing else more than reconciliation. For an end to her period of self-flagellation, this accursed loneliness that swam inside her veins. She had no desire to remain a Pariah forever, always shunned by both the Lions and the Snakes, and eventually the others too. Bereft of any friend - _or foe_ \- until she merely seemed to _exist_ in some hollowed sort of sense. A doll, pretty but broken, once full of so much promise.

She could have that promise back. She could have that _feeling_ back. Erase all the years that had stood between them, the years of Hell that she had suffered.

She hadn’t been aware that her decision would lead her to a new Heaven; a stark land filled and lorded over by deliciously wicked temptation and outright desire masked as some form of salvation. She was led by _Her_ , just as much as she was led by _Him._ The Chosen One had ascended, and His eternal will would fill them until the Sun crashed down around them.

Immortality that could be claimed at a price. A price that had been dangled in front of her at the end of a hangman’s noose.

She could rebuild all the bridges.

Restore all of her connections.

Both a Sponsor and a Family, all of it rolled into one. It was necessary in this new world where those who were like _her_ were seen to be below the Others, below the last dredges of a society painfully born anew.

War managed to inflame them all with the passion of a quickly spreading fever, the pitch and rise of it all far too sudden for anyone to predict or halt. The progression was inevitable. Their submission was expected.

Salvation was awarded.

But back then? The start of all her years alone where no one would speak to her, no one would dare sit near her, all the spaces around her used as a buffer against some blight that she couldn’t parse. Couldn’t understand. How had it all come to that? Was it that she had spun the golden hourglass one way, instead of the other? The sands of time deigning to pull her _this_ way, instead of _that?_

Chance.

Honest mistakes.

One second of one minute, one hour measured up against a lifetime.

Something changed before the end of that year, something twisted while she remained by the sleeping boy’s side, and _He_ ran out to save a dog all on His own.

 _Something_ had happened, but she couldn’t tell just what.

The night had proceeded onwards until the morning rose above the horizon, bringing with it changes. A chopping block stained red with the blood of a Beast. Her head now filling His altar, His eyes glaring so very bright. At the time she had been sure that she would be consumed within the depths of His green flames.

Hermione was far from stupid. She had known and recognized that she was no longer wanted, no longer appreciated, and the ride back all alone only served to underline His point. At best she was secondhand goods, discarded like so much trash into the street. At worst she was a leper upon their circle, an evil to be shunned.

And so she had suffered.

Her body and mind toiling beneath unease as the summer progressed to one with all her letters unanswered, all her mail returned, no voices and no reasons beyond the frightful glare that He had sent her as she hastily departed the platform. The ones she had once called Family were the first to notice all her changes, the first ones to bring it up, but they and she were so very different now. All of their endless questions and ceaseless prodding were useless.

They weren’t brightened by the wisps of _magic_ that she so craved, left cold and empty without the burning passion that lit all the others skin, an aura that she could oftentimes see as clear as day. They were Muggle, Mundane, absolutely normal in the worst sense imaginable.

And she was not.

The summer passed her by in endless days filled up with solitude until eventually her cravings reached their breaking point, a singular moment where everything around her collapsed backwards into heated desire and an itch that burned like Fiendfyre beneath the topmost portion of her skin. An ache between her breast that filled her and pulled her until she found herself standing all alone in a crowded street. The denizens of the Alley moved all around her, throngs of patrons passing by, and yet still she was apart from them. Different. Not alone, not truly, for there were obviously others of her disposition standing at street corners and in darkened alleys, fear in their eyes and longing in their hearts. But even with all their similarities, she was avoided. Separated.

They were all so alike but she was _different,_ damningly so. She was diseased. A vector for transmission that had remained undiscovered until now, given a wide berth at the behest of someone else’s wishes.

The ride back only managed to further reinforce it.

The lack of any words of recognition only confirmed it.

The Trials that He faced that year were all run through while she stood apart, and alone, upon the sidelines. The itch beneath her skin was only mildly soothed by the pulsing glow of her peers, but it was still _there._ A maddening feeling that seemed to taunt her the longer she remained unable to quell it fully.

She managed to catch an ear towards some escape, some trick, a person playing another’s part.

But they wouldn’t listen to a pariah such as her.

Their lack of words or actions only confirmed it.

And so she suffered.

Suffered through all the remainder of that year in a silence that hid her tears, hid fear, hid the nervousness that filled her chest as she watched Him blaze through each trial and tribulation. She watched from the stands as He cradled false gold beneath His arms, watched from the shoreline as He broke the surface first, watched with frantic eyes from on high above the crowd as He returned triumphant with a stretched grin and glassy eyes. There had been a trophy in His arms.

A miracle, they decreed.

A miracle for Him. A Hell on Earth for her.

Soon enough the winds that had sent her down this path began to change again, this time filled with a foul smoke that wafted off the burning fires as the Ministry tore itself apart. The switch was quick, if not painless, not so violent as it could have been. A single nights work before everything above had been pulled on down below. All the iron bars pulled apart, all the rusted cages opened, the Decree’s sent out with black owls and golden trim.

Another summer spent in self-imposed quarantine.

Another train that chugged along in silence, all those aboard now willing strangers.

The papers all proclaimed Freedom but fear still brewed beneath the calm veneer of her mind. The damned ache returned to a fever pitch as she wandered her way in the world of the Mundane. The normal.

It _hurt._

The pain of being denied so much, the pain of being the _only_ one.

Sleep barely managed to find her as she shivered beneath heaps of blankets with hands roving across her flesh as if she could wipe away the Mud that stained her so. It was futile. A useless action. She could no more cleanse herself of this filth than she could change the pure bronze of her skin.

A new year, new dawn, the same cold reception and pitying stares from across the room.

She was _Mud._

She was _pariah_ given true form; the shame a sharp spike of dark and twisting ice that swelled beneath her gut as time marched on.

More Decrees were revealed, more rules instated, all of them she hastily complied with, followed to the letter.

Even when the last one was revealed. Even when they spent an hour pounding iron into stone, only seconds later declaring her _unfit_ to reside among _Them_ without a proper Sponsor. Without a Family to guide her through survival and integration, someone who could teach her to keep all their secrets.

She jumped at the chance, the first one to seek a Sponsor, a prize they dangled above her fingertips as she danced and leapt before they even had a chance to ask her to. Eventually, though, they did. Eventually, _He_ did.

It was all a looping circle.

Close the ring of hate; He knew where she should go, He was related to them and seemed enthused to count her among His kin. A Family and Sponsor who would be worthy of her intelligence, her drive. Worthy enough to stamp out all of her shame. Worthy enough to ensure that He could make up for a past where He had erred, leaving her so very alone and oh so frightened.

So pained.

She knew then that it should have hurt her to cut them out, the Mundane that had first reached down to pull her from the Mud of an unfit womb. But her new Family had promised they would Cleanse her, Purify her, Sanctify her in the New World that had grown up around them without her active recognition. Rapture called her heart and all too soon she was basking in the feeling of being _wanted_ again, _needed_ again, _desired_ once more. 

Narcissa was more a mother than a true teacher, stern but still so very loving. Lucius was a serviceable father, more distant than his wife but helpful all the same. He was filled from top to bottom with knowledge that he would let her apply or leave, happy only to be given a chance to impart knowledge despite its use or lack thereof. Draco came to be more a brother than an antagonist, happy to help and drag her into the world that she had been so unfairly excluded from. He hoped for a sister to quell the loneliness he had grown up in, a secret revealed in the dead of night. They each passed her bits of wisdom, reams of truth, centuries of mystery and intrigue that somehow fit into distilled lessons supplementing her more formal education.

She learned as much as she could. More, from midnight trips to a darkened library within their halls.

How could she not? _Finally,_ she had been brought back into the fold. _Finally,_ her dogged persona of the Pariah could be left behind. She cared little if her education was completed and augmented by those she had once feared, passed off to her by those who she had once been so reluctant to trust.

But still, it wasn’t enough. All their words and actions were sweet, their motive kind, and discipline only followed when she failed to meet expectations. There still ran an ache between the spaces under the skin, above her muscle, an itch she was unable to relieve.

Until one day she was informed that soon it would be relieved, fixed, _corrected._

All the while she had been learning, she had prayed. In the darkest parts of the night she hoped and beseeched ancient Deities, crying out for the distance that still separated her from others to be breached, torn away. Eventually her prayers were heard and acted upon, though in an altogether unexpected manner and by a woman that she never would have expected.

Bellatrix.

A force of nature; older, wiser, and stronger than her would-be husband who now lay in pieces at the bottom of the North Sea.

The woman was beautiful. All her pretty edges sharp as razors. Intoxicating in every respect. The woman reeked of Dark Magic, a flood of pure emotion that pounded against the thin shell of Hermione’s mind whenever she drew near. The aura was almost tangible, a sweetness that poured fire all along her skin in a bid to set her soul aflame. Bellatrix’s lessons were the harshest she had ever received, the strangest and most wicked. The witch’s words embedded themselves so far into the darkest recesses of her mind that it was all she could manage to dream about when darkness finally pulled her into a sweet embrace.

The whip in her hand brought splashes and bright marks against the tanned expanse of her back, set her core to drip dew from between her lips with every hit that made its mark. The witch’s fingers filling her up, pressing deeply into her body while she clenched in an effort to wring as much pleasure as she could from the act. The sting of her dagger blazing a trail along her arm, the movements proclaiming her status as Black. The piercing sensation of nails that sought entrance beneath her too warm flesh. Hermione hadn’t realized just how much she craved the witch’s touch, even painful as it was. She would never be good enough for the Witch; she was filled with too much Mud, too little Darkness, all the anchors of her blood still holding her back from what she was _meant_ to be.

It all led her back to here, this moment and this second.

The Ritual.

A cleansing that was meant to open her up, pour out all the filth, fill her back up with new blood and new purpose.

All the ideals that she had once held herself to all those years ago were torn asunder by the ever-changing whims of an uncaring world, all based and strewn about until she had held no more purpose. All erased until she had craved for nothing more than touch, nothing more than a release from the stagnation her isolated existence had thrown her into. Harry had seen to that, He must have sensed some worth hiding inside of her meagre soul. His declaration was the only reason that she had a Sponsor, had a Family.

It was all thanks to Him that she was laid out across a ritual slab with naked skin that sang into the heat pouring out the fireplace at her side. It was all thanks to Him that she was kept still beneath the careful grace of Bellatrix’s strong figure, her knowing hands, as a knife scarred glyphs into her skin in an effort to _teach_ her. Faint pulses rose in a cadence that signalled the beginning of her end when the witch above her pressed down harder below her navel, voice chanting all the while as the wind picked up around them from out of nowhere and nothing. Ash settled in streaks marred with sweat atop her heaving breast.

By all the Gods did the ritual burn, the twisting force of _true_ magic bashing itself against her very soul. The nature of it meant no mercy as it sought to fill up her limbs and encroach upon the most private corners of her mind. 

Heat encased her from tip to top, fire licked at her heart, and the hand upon her abdomen burned luminescent with all the force of a focused spell.

It was over far faster than she had ever imagined it would take.

There had been a few minutes of uncomfortable heat. Some pain from a wickedly sharp knife. Then nothing.

She was empty.

Waiting to be filled.

And filled she was, bathed in the darkness that had been gifted from the others, from her Family and her Mistress. Darkness with a will all its own, angry and fervent as it thrashed against its bonds. She could _feel_ them all. She could sense the minute roll and twist as magic followed their core down to their hands, could taste the runoff pouring out their wands and fingertips.

Hermione Jean Granger died a slow death at the tail end of her third year at Hogwarts. Alone, unwanted, she had been shoved aside and beaten down. It took nearly four years before her heartbeat finally stilled, stolen and suppressed beneath the eager hands of another.

Hermione Cassiopeia Black was born with a storm raging all around her, the spilling ichor of her Mistress’s words and magic filling her up with purpose anew.

Was this what she had wanted?

She wasn’t sure.

But she loved it all the same.


End file.
